Tag: Gender

Troy is the first female character in a Spike Lee film that isn’t one dimensional, or stereotypical. For me Troy offered something different. And as a little girl Troy possessed a quality of rebellion and unapologeticness that many of his older women characters were lacking. I think it is interesting to take a look at how troy impacts the other women/girl characters in Crooklyn. In my opinion the most visibly and notably impacted woman she impacted upon her encounter with them was her cousin Viola. Although troy had to make some changes to her physical (her hair) in order to please her aunt she changed the women around her much more. From the very beginning of the time she stays with her family down south she is herself and doesn’t compromise that. I remember her aunt leaving the two girls in the room after she sends them to bed after prayer and as she shuts the door Troy begins jumping on the bed. This may seem like a minor and typical action to many but it was powerful because she got her cousin Viola to laugh and engage in it, although that typically wasn’t in Viola’s interest and personality for her to do. Viola’s mother was obsessed with making Viola always seem so poised, elegant and mature, that it is as if she was losing out on her childhood, Troy being there with her that summer and being unwittingly herself gave Viola back that. We see that in the scene where the two are riding on a bike through the neighborhood and playing with the neighbors dog on the lawn. Troy reached Viola the art of being a carefree black girl.

Oscar Micheaux is credited as the first African American film director. He was part of a movement in film, which was called ‘race films’, a somewhat condescending and reducing title for an ambitious and formidable school of film. Micheaux’s films stand alone as race films that actually dealt with issues of race and in … Continue reading →

We’ve all heard this phrase used in earnest before. It’s supposed to downplay or excuse something racist said by a white person by demonstrating their personal affinity for black people. It is meaningless and an extension of the racism expressed in their previous statement that they are now trying to cover up with the excuse … Continue reading →

Spike Lee has a firm place in the debate of the obligation of the black artist. Lee sits as an unwavering force in this discussion because he is a black artist making art about black people for black people at an unprecedented scale with an unprecedented audience. Get on the Bus, for several reasons, … Continue reading →

In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon addresses the appearance of blackness in black men and what it means to validate your black, male appearance. In lieu with that the idea that seeing black males, evoked memories of violence and following, feelings of fear in white people, I believe that there would have been an effort to […]

When I first watched Get on the Bus, I laughed out loud when I saw Isaiah Washington’s character. The laughter come from a place of being confused about his identity as a black gay republican and a vague memory of watching Grey’s Anatomy when I was in middle school. I found it interesting that in […]

This essay, by Bill Benzon, is one of the most sophisticated readings of Mo’Better Blues. I found it very resourceful for my final project. In this essay, he discusses; The Cultural Psychodynamics of Racism Discipline of Jazz: From Nature to Culture Destructiveness and Creativity: The Albatross of Romanticism The Blues in the Night Jazz as […]

TW: Sexual Assault The two aspects of School Daze that really rubbed me the wrong way were its handling of queer issues and its handling of sexual assault. In School Daze, Lee sought to portray HBCU life in all of its complexities. However, in doing so, I feel he used the issue of sexual violence and gay identity […]

As I mentioned in my last blog, I really wanted to do a film analysis of When the Levees Broke, but since I wasn’t sure how to go about it, I looked up some guidelines from a few websites. This film analysis website had the easiest step-by-step guideline, so I’ll be using it for my blog, but I’ll […]

I found Spike Lee’s 1996 film Get on the Bus to be an interesting, although not satisfying, look at Black American masculinity in its multitude of forms in the mid-1990s. One aspect of the movie that stuck out most for me was the depiction of queer (in this case, gay or MSM) identity. I was particularly […]